Episodes

A while back I came across this great free software that will go out on the web and grab a bunch of really cool photographs, and use them to create a new Windows wallpaper for your computer which continuously changes as often as you wish. It’s pretty cool! The program is called John’s Background Switcher. Guess who created it. That’s right, it was John! You can get it free here: https://johnsad.ventures/software/backgroundswitcher/. Getting the program installed is easy – just go to the link I...

Today we’re talking about how to remove saved passwords from your web browser. You shouldn’t have Chrome or Firefox store passwords for you. It’s not safe. If anyone ever got access to your computer, they would see a full list of all your accounts and passwords – definitely not good! Use LastPass instead. But sometimes you might get a popup asking if you want the browser to save the password and you might just click “Save” without thinking, to get the window out of the way. So you might have s...

It’s great to be able to speak into your device, such as the Amazon Echo or Echo Dot to get some information. But did you know, every one of those voice commands is stored by Amazon? You might find it handy to know how to delete that history. How to VIEW your Alexa recordings: It’s easiest to do this on your computer. Go to the website alexa.amazon.com and over on the left side, click on Settings: Then over on the right side, scroll down to the “Alexa account” section and click on History: No...

Sometimes when I’m browsing the web, I get annoyed and confused. Annoyed at websites that automatically start playing sound, and confused as to why the creator of that site thought it was a good idea. I mean seriously – websites auto-playing sound became a trend maybe 15 years ago, but users made it very clear that the practice was not acceptable. Any course, class or seminar on website development will make it clear, you don’t start playing audio automatically when someone visits your website....

There is yet another virus making the rounds on Facebook, and it’s tricking a lot of users into clicking on it and infecting their computers. Here’s what the message looks like: I’ve gotten these Facebook Messenger messages from several of my FB friends. It always has the same content – your first name, followed by “it’s you?“, along with what looks like a link to a YouTube video. This is a very common tactic in virus emails as well – it’s specifically designed to arouse your curiosity. In fa...

Scott – You’ve piqued my interest with this sentence that you sneaked into a recent podcast: “Really, sending pictures by email is a bad idea to start with, but that’s a story for another day.” How about making that day next week’s podcast? I want to know what you recommend. Photos are a problem I constantly struggle with – both sending and receiving. Keep up the good work. Cheers, Terry You shouldn’t send photos as email attachments. Especially if you have a lot of photos you want to send. Her...

For a lot of people, the most valuable thing stored on their computer (or their phone) is the collection of photos. A lot of things can be replaced, but not the photos. In case you didn’t know, there’s a way to back up your photos that is 100% automated and completely free. You should be taking advantage of this. This is one of those things that I do as second nature now, and for that type of thing I sometimes forget that not everyone knows about it so it might not occur to me to do a blog post...

If you’re using Windows 10, your computer has the built-in ability to bring up a chat window so you can communicate with an actual person from Microsoft. You don’t have to go to their website, and you don’t have to pick up your phone. All too often, someone will contact me about a computer problem, and the conversation starts with that person saying, “I was just talking with Microsoft on the phone, and they told me…”. At that point I already know what has happened. In most cases, I’ll let them ...

You probably already know you can go in to your web browser’s settings and clear ALL your cookies for every website you’ve visited. But did you know you can also go in and clear out the cookies for a specific website? You sure can. And why would you want to do that? In some cases, a website might be using an app that is not working properly and you want to view the site “cleanly” (without cookies from previous visits to the site). In my situation as a tech, sometimes a client will tell me that ...

A lot of people have HEARD of “zip files” but are not really familiar with what they are specifically. Here’s how they work. Part of the confusion with this is that it’s not really obvious or clear what is meant by a folder being “zipped”. I mean, everyone knows what a zipper does, but how does that relate to computer files? It might be easier if “zipped” were replaced with the word “compressed”. A zipped folder is just a folder that holds other files or folders, but compresses them so that th...

Hello Scott, My daughter got me addicted to podcasts, and I follow about 15 different ones. Yours is the one I look forward to the most. You provide a great service to a growing audience. Thank you. I have a Windows 7 desktop and it’s time for a new one. I am planning to buy a Windows 10 PC in a month or two. I am very concerned about how to get all my files (Word/Excel documents, photos, music, videos, etc.) onto my new PC. When I upgraded to Windows 7, I recall purchasing software that came wi...

If you use Word and sometimes put pictures and captions in your documents, you will probably find today’s tip helpful. Sometimes when you have a picture and a caption in Word, and you try to move the picture, the caption doesn’t get moved like you would expect it to. Here’s how to fix that (and thanks to reader Marloes for suggesting this as a tip). Here’s a little background, if you’re not familiar with this. Let’s say I have a blank Word document, and I put in a picture of my dog, Fenway: I...

Today’s tip comes from a question I got recently: Is there a simple way to type a single word and have it list the font name and display the word, so you have a sample of all your font styles? Thanks – Stephen Yes, Stephen, that is possible! A few years ago I did this in MS Word, the hard way. I typed out the alphabet and the numbers 0 through 9 in a Word document, then copied and pasted it so I had that same set of characters displayed like 60 times. Each one was on its own line. Then I went...

In my podcast a couple of weeks ago I mentioned Bitcoin just in passing, and I had some listener inquiries about it. Obviously it’s been in the news quite a bit recently, and some people are asking about what it is, how it works, and how someone can actually purchase it. So today I’ll provide on overview, and some resources you might find helpful. First things first: This post is not being offered as investment advice. I am not an investment or cryptocurrency expert and this article is presente...

It’s the weirdest thing – as I get older, a lot of websites have decided to make their print size smaller and more difficult to read. So rude of them! But in Chrome (and Firefox), I have the option to make the words bigger. I get this request fairly often from clients. Sometimes they think they’ve figured out how to do it themselves. But that’s only temporary. They’ll open Chrome, click on the 3 dots, and spot the menu item that says “Zoom” with a percentage next to it. They’ll adjust it to 12...

For quite a while, Firefox was my default browser. I’ve been using Chrome as my default for several years now and I really like it. But the new super-fast version of Firefox might be tempting. When your Firefox gets upgraded to the new version (version 57) this is the message you’ll get on the screen from Chris Beard (CEO of Mozilla, the company that creates and distributes Firefox); What are the pros and cons for using the new Firefox? PROS: First, it’s just faster. I have not run any scient...

I write about scams fairly frequently on this blog. Sometimes it’s because of a new one I’ve just heard about, and I want to warn my readers to be aware of it and not get taken. In some cases, it’s because I’ve just had to deal with a client who has become the most recent victim and lost money or had their computer compromised or infected. Those stories don’t usually have a happy ending. But today, I’m writing with some good news. With a lot of scams, there is one common element: Western Union....

Lots of people are posting videos on Facebook these days. Videos tend to catch a little more attention than a static photo, and a LOT more attention than a simple text post. What if you want to download someone’s video from Facebook and save it to your computer? In the past it was not very easy to do that, but now there’s a really easy way. I’ve been downloading Facebook videos for a long time. In fact, that’s how I ended up with a video going viral a couple of years ago (seriously viral – way ...

It’s that time again – today we’re featuring some websites I’ve come across recently that I think you might find useful or entertaining. Fotoforensics http://fotoforensics.com/ These days, you can’t really say for sure if a photo you’re looking at is the real thing, or if it’s been “doctored” with Photoshop or some other photo editing software. Well, at least you can’t be sure with just your human eyes. At the Fotoforensics website, you can upload a photo and have it analyzed for editing. Pers...

Everyone knows Craigslist as “the” online classified ads site. It’s been around forever. But now there are other options so we’re not stuck with the limitations of Craigslist anymore. The site I really like is called OfferUp. You can use OfferUp from your computer (just go to offerup.com) but it’s really designed to be used from your phone. That’s what makes it so incredibly easy and fast to use, whenever you want to sell something. From your phone (Android or iPhone) get the OfferUp app, then...

Everyone knows to be careful of scammers when shopping on Craigslist (actually everyone doesn’t know that, but they should). And lots of people are aware of potential scams on eBay, since just about anyone can sign up as an eBay seller. But Amazon – now that’s a place with a great reputation for excellent customer service, so it must always be a safe place to shop, right? Not always. There are a couple of things that most people assume when shopping on Amazon: The product being offered for the...

For some reason, Microsoft doesn’t want us getting in to the Control Panel on our computers. In Windows 10, they’ve created a different thing called “Settings”, but Control Panel is still there (at least for now) if you know where to find it. Here’s how to get to it easily in Windows 10. Depending on how recent your Windows 10 updates are, you might be able to get to Control Panel by just holding down the Windows key and tapping the letter X. That brings up this quick menu, and Control Panel is...

Windows 10 is created and distributed by Microsoft, so it has its own agenda about what programs and settings should be the defaults and how you should use your computer. In my opinion, it’s MY computer so I want to set it the way I want to use it. This isn’t always consistent with Microsoft’s wishes but I sure hope they’ll get over it. I have a whole routine I go through whenever I set up a Windows 10 computer (whether it’s a brand new one a client just bought, or a laptop I’m refurbishing to ...

So many people are worried about identity theft now. Especially with the recent problem with Equifax, where the personal information of 143 million people was hacked into. What should you do? Should you hire a company like Lifelock to protect your credit file? In my opinion, definitely not (for more than one reason, which I’ll cover). Imagine this scenario. Your friend comes to you and he’s very worried that someone will get into his house and steal his valuable items such as his computer, his...